A nice interesting song….

This song is good… very good… I’m slightly insane but I’m sure you are aware of that by now, I don’t do things by half measures and if something is right, something is right. But as the song states above everyone has the sames fears…..

How slack have I been, no posts for a month and now that I’m writing this I have nothing interesting to tell you, I mean I have interesting stuff but really right now I think it’s MY interesting stuff and not yours! Updates will be up soon, we have launched a new radio show called Tassywood all about Tasmanian filmmakers and film, so you will something like that come here soon.. Otherwise I will keep you informed if I feel I need to :)

Ok so you may notice I have failed to post any new shows lately, I will update eventually but you can always go over to http://bgrademoviesonline.com and http://podacastontheradio.com to get all the latest episodes of both shows. Yes more reviews will begin to pop up on a more regular basis as Film Central the new show Steven and myself have become a part of asks that we also write a review, so look for them coming here. Otherwise enjoy yourself and I will see you sometime in the future I am sure…

Julia’s Eyes

Directed by Guillem Morales

Written by Guillem Morales & Oriol Paulo

Staring Belén Rueda, Lluís Homar, Pablo Derqui & Francesc Orella

I can’t say how important it is sometimes that you give foreign movies a god damn chance to shine, sometime you will be given a gift of an awesome movie, such as this movie. Julia’s Eyes in another great movie that has got Guillermo del Toro to thank for bring to us, del Toro obviously saw in Morales something special and helped produce this awesome movie that will no doubt join The Orphanage, Pan’s Labyrinth and The Devils Backbone as great movies coming from Spain. The movie revolves around Julia (played by the fantastic Belén Rueda) who is in the process of losing her vision because of a hereditary diseases that also effected her late sister, who recently committed suicide. Julia and her husband Isaac (played by Lluís Homar) believes that Julia’s sister Sara (also played by Belén Rueda) did not commit suicide as she had just undergone an operation that was supposed to give her back her failing sight. When Julia’s husband also apparently commits suicide and in his suicide note confesses to having an affair with Sara, Julia’s life is ripped apart. Trying to get some semblance of a life back she goes ahead with the same operation as her sister, then things start to go a little strange indeed as she chooses to spend the next few weeks blind in her sisters old home.

The movie is a delight to the eyes and senses using some great camera techniques later on in the movie that just make the mood work so well. Rueda is a great lead and very nice to look at, she plays great emotion and really works herself into the character. The only real issue I have is in the last 50 minutes or so in the film it became so readable that it was sad. I say that because it is actually a great tense driven movie, but when a movie like this becomes predictable it loses it edge. Otherwise it was a joy to watch and visually a feast for the eyes, no pun intended.

3.5/5

Super 8 (2011)

Directed by J.J. Abrams

Written by J.J. Abrams

Staring with Joel Courtney, Elle Fanning, Ryan Lee, Zach Mills, Riley Griffiths, Gabriel Basso, Kyle Chandler, Ron Eldard and Amanda Michalka

The summer blockbuster comes to our shores and I have to say I am half and half with this movie, I’ll start off by saying I indeed did fall asleep during about 15 minutes of this movie but don’t take that to heart, it does not mean it’s bad. The movie is a hark back to the good old days of kids movies, like Goonies and E.T. sadly the movies are not giving the kids the same joy that those movies gave us, instead they are heading for the older crowd and not pleasing the new. We have our kids making a movie out at a train station in the middle of the night when a car derails a train that was going by. The kids investigate to witness something escaping from the wreckage, something not of this earth. The whole town is then on patrol as dogs start going missing, and then before too long so do people. Before too long the military have come in to take over the issue, but what is their real involvement and what do they truly know. We have many character developments happening in the back ground, some which are not really needed in a kids movie, save it for the adult stuff, this movie does not need to be a thriller , it’s a kids adventure treat it like that!

Our principal actors are truly great with Joel Courtney, Elle Fanning, Ryan Lee, Zach Mills, Gabriel Basso and Riley Griffiths all playing their part fantastically, sort of like the troop from Goonies but not as well know. In fact Joel Courtney and Riley Griffiths both are making there debut with this film, and I’ve got to say I was impressed with both. Outside of the performances I was a little let down by the movie on a whole, it could have been so much more and the ending was wrapped too quickly, I was left wondering why it could not have done that before, and sadly I kept coming back to Paul and how this movie is very similar but at the same time so different. The alien is more like Cloverfield, not getting too much of a good look at it in the beginning which worked, and near the end over exposing the creature and realising it looks like crap. The best part of this movie was the end as we actually got to see the movie the kids were making through out the film, so make sure you remain seated when the credits start to roll because you don’t want to miss the best part of the fun.
All in all it’s a good enjoyable movie, but just not who it should be fore which is the kids, this should have been their Goonies, instead it’s more like Predator or something like that, just too much and not enough fun!
2.5/5

X-Men: First Class (2011)

Directed by Matthew Vaughn

Written by Ashley Miller (screenplay), Zack Stentz (screenplay), Jane Goldman (screenplay), Matthew Vaughn (screenplay), Sheldon Turner (story) and Bryan Singer (story)

Staring James McAvoy, Michael Fassbender, Kevin Bacon, Rose Byrne and Jennifer Lawrence

The latest X-Men movie comes at us with a new promise of freedom from the mess that the last movie created, by doing what most franchises these days do, and going back to the beginning. But it’s not a reboot, it’s far from that sadly. The opening scene is a familiar one that all fans of the first movie will remember. We have young Eric Lehnsherr begin dragged kicking and screaming away from his parents in a concentration camp, which of course triggers his genetic mutation, the power over metal. As we know from the first three films, Eric Lehnsherr became the mutant villain known as Magneto (played flawlessly by Sir Ian McKellen in the first films) the master of magnatisim. Michael Fassbender has the privilege of playing the adult Eric in this film and sadly I find he falls short of McKellen’s version, but this is of course an origin story of a kind so I will cut him some flack. We also bare witness to Charles Xavier and his first meeting with Raven Darkholme, Professor X and Mystic respectively. Once again the adult versions played by James McAvoy and Jennifer Lawrence hardly stack up to Patrick Stewart and Rebecca Romijn, but I digress I should be talking about the movie. We follow Xavier and Lehnsherr as they form a band of mutants to try and help others of their kind, but they run headlong into Lehnsherr’s old teacher of sorts, Sebastian Shaw (played by Kevin Bacon who obviously was after work. He tries, I’ll give Kevin credit, but sadly it’s just the wrong movie for you Kevin, stick to you thriller/drama movies you suit them so much better). Anyway, they all battle and blah, blah, blah, code names are given, people are killed, enemies are made and of course the end….

Sometimes when sitting down to watch a movie I already have an idea in place of how this movie will go. Sadly, this failed to go where I had hoped and instead paid too much attention to the 3 movies before it, rather than starting a new legacy. X-Men: First Class was anything but the movie die hard fans had hoped for, having too many problems with characters and how they played their roles within the story and what they were even there for in the first place.
All in all for a popcorn movie it works, but for a fan of the series it is just more crap. Let’s all sit back and wait for their next shot at getting this right. Maybe Wolverine 2 will give some credit back to the mutants. One hopes…
2/5 - Matt

New covers to old episodes, the original covers looked like below

A few more covers from some older shows I thought I would update when I was doing some covers for a few episodes that are coming up, I think they work.